What to watch for tonight

by Mike Rutherford on Apr 17, 2009 1:54 PM EDT in Football

The weather is awesome, it's Louisville football, you're allowed to drink, you're allowed to yell, let's do it.

1. The quarterback battle

It's apparently Froman v. Burke at this point, but the relative lack of enthusiasm over either leads me to believe that Wolfe and Stoudt still have more than a puncher's chance if they perform well tonight and step things up in a big way when fall camp starts.

This is a difficult situation for the offensive staff, because if you're going with Froman you basically have to decide now in order to re-work the offense so that it's conducive to a run-first quarterback. If it's Burke, then you probably still work in some special plays for Froman, but you don't have to completely revamp things.

It will be quite interesting to see how this plays out.

2. Darius Ashley

He's got the same buzz Vic had 12 months ago, now it's time to see whether or not he can come close to living up to it in the manner that Anderson did. If he does and Bilal Powell doesn't look like he's made big strides in the offseason, then it could mean even more of a reduced role for my man.

3. The offensive line

Louisville's offensive front five has been a positive even in these last two years, but replacing Eric Wood and George Bussey might be the biggest hurdle the unit has had to overcome in quite some time. With the quarterback being live, how well or poorly the o-line is playing should be easily apparent.

4. Josh Chichester

With Scott Long not participating, tonight is a wonderful opportunity for Josh Chichester to show he's ready to be a lethal deep threat. Doug Beaumont is still likely to have more balls thrown his way than any other Cardinal wideout, but there's no doubt that Chichester will get at least a couple of opportunities to make some plays downfield.

5. The secondary

They didn't exactly end the season on a high point, and they're still without Johnny Patrick, but here's hoping the unit gives us a reason to be optimistic.

6. The placekickers

Field goal kicking took a titanic dip in the post-Arthur Carmody world, so someone drilling a couple from more than 30-yards out tonight would be nice.

7. Organization

The U of L football team has appeared discombobulated throughout the Steve Kragthorpe era, so seeing players consistently lined up in the right spots and knowing how to run the play in question has the potential to be the most positive thing to come out of this evening.

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Comments

Will the refs...

…..call the 6-men on the LOS penalty tonight? If I’m the defensive coaches (how sad is this: I can’t type his name and would have to look it up) then I’m putting the refs on notice about that early on.

Anyway, from the other thread, he’s what I posted about what I’ll be watching for tonight, in a less organized and less thought-out fashion than the above post, as always.

Here’s what I’m looking for, although frankly I can’t imagine coming away from this with anything other than apathy/despair.

I’ve read we are dink/dunk and that both Froman and Burke are accurate but don’t have strong arms. I guess this means lots of passes to Doug B. and Pascley in space and hope they make someone miss. So, A#1 on my list is plays that result in an open WR with room to run. Seeing Doug juke the pants off the recently converted WR Jacque Caldwell will not get me that excited about either the offense OR the secondary.

The rest, in no particular order:

2) Vic Anderson to do awesome things

3) Darius Ashley to do awesome things

4) If the D-line gets pressure I fear that says more about the O-line than the D-line, where we are thin and don’t have a lot of talent as far as I can tell.

5) According to the CJ article this morning and some uoflsports.com/Pravda write-ups, Brandon Heath is now the most important person on defense. Please, please, please let Brandon Heath have learned how to cover someone going out for a pass. Because he sure as hell couldn’t do that in 2007 and 2008 or he would have been on the field more.

6) Dexter Heyman – you still there bro?

7) Chichester to act more like Featherstone from the last 5 minutes of Necessary Roughness, not the first 75 minutes.

8) Scott Long healthy and used correctly (hello there pass > 15 yards) *EDIT: I think I remember seeing Long is actually out until at least August, so I doubt we see him tonight.

9) Nice weather because, frankly, isn’t that what it is all about?
10) One of the new randos in the secondary to play reasonably well

by CardsFan922 on Apr 17, 2009 2:33 PM EDT reply actions